Quotation of the Day…

(Don Boudreaux)

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… is from page 125 of Steve Landsburg’s wonderful 1997 book, Fair Play (original emphasis):

The other day, a bright nineteen-year-old woman told me that she would happily die at twenty-one if she could have unlimited income in the intervening two years. I told her that I didn’t believe her, because if income were that important to her, she’d be out earning it instead of chatting idly with me. She said – and this chilled me to the bone – that she’d be doing just that if only she could, but unfortunately there are very few opportunities in the area where she lives.

Very few opportunities! So this young woman had surveyed the world around her and found it perfect just as it was. There were no needs to fill, no improvements to offer, no contributions to be made. If we were all as oblivious as my young woman friend, she and the rest of us would live in caves instead of houses.